Trent Jamieson - Roil

Kara Jade grabbed and steadied him, helping him over and away from Cadell’s line, they both tumbled to the floor of the gondola.

“You’re back with us,” David said.

She coughed, her eyes wild. She lifted up her cut line. “That rope’s expensive.”

“How can a flyer weigh so much?” He said.

Kara blinked. “You may have saved my life, but if you don’t shut up I’m gonna have to slit your throat, and – oh…” She rose to her feet unsteadily, then pointed behind him.

David turned. Cadell’s situation had grown far more precarious. He had lost his footing and hung in the air, dangling from the edge of the ship by his fingertips.

Cadell slowly pulled himself back up, and slid again to the iron ship’s cockpit window; steam rising in sudden dirty grey bursts from the cracks that scarred it.

David heard the distant retort of the iron ship’s guns, and then something struck the nearby gondola wall, shattering the outer layer. A thin pale liquid ran from the wound.

The guns blazed again.

This time one of the bioengines was hit; it rumbled rather than whined. Above them the Aerokin groaned. The Roslyn Dawn veered to the right. Black smoke streamed from the cracked nacelle. David turned towards the pilot seat where Margaret sat hunched over and cursing at the controls.

Down below, Cadell shook his head, all the while shouting something and gesturing at the glass as though he could break it with words and will alone.

The iron ship dipped and bobbed, then dived, all at once. The rope hissed as it played out the door, the fibre smoking. David wanted to stop it, to yank it back in and Cadell with it. But he also wanted to survive. Cadell knew what he was doing, he hoped.

Below, Cadell appeared unperturbed. He waved his hands palm out over the shattered glass once, twice, three times.

The iron ship frosted over with a sudden explosion of ice: a kind of frozen fire. It hovered jerkily, a last burst of flame spluttering in its engines. Cadell ran to the edge of the craft and leapt smoothly into the air, clinging onto the rope. But it was a moment too late. The iron ship flipped up and struck him on back of the head. Even from the Roslyn Dawn, David could see the blood spray.

The frozen ship fell away punching through the clouds. Not long after, and far below, the sky flared, became almost clear. A distant detonation followed like a muted thunderclap.

Dizziness welled within him, staring at that explosion, so far below. He needed to sit down, or throw up then sit down, and then he realised he could not see Cadell anywhere.

“He’s gone. He’s gone,” David said.

Kara drove an elbow into his side.

She looked half-dead, but her face was set with a grim and awful energy. Her shaking hands gripped the now taut line. The biceps of her lean arms bulged.

“Hey, idiot,” she snapped. “This rope, Cadell’s on the other end, remember.”

Kara Jade had wound it around a pole by the doorifice, her arms straining.

“Sorry,” David said.

Kara Jade’s jaw clenched. “Don’t be sorry, just help me.”

He sprang towards her and grabbed the rope.

“I’m ready,” he said.

They pulled it in, foot by tedious foot. After ten minutes, sweat stinging his eyes, hands bloody, muscles burning, he wondered just how much rope had played out.

“Pretty heavy for a scrawny old geezer, isn’t he?” Kara panted. “Of course the air’s thin at these altitudes. Doesn’t make it any easier. Nor do head injuries.”

“At least it means that he’s at the end of it,” David said.

They worked until David thought his arms were going to drop off and his lungs pop out of his mouth. Finally, Cadell’s hands clamped around the edge of the doorifice.

Cadell was awake, the Old Man was awake. He pulled himself up and through the doorifice, his skin bloodless, his lips blue, one of his eyes had swollen shut.

His body was cold, David could see ice forming where his feet touched the Roslyn Dawn. The doorifice reacted by opening wide. Wind whistled through, and Cadell stood there, unsteadily, the empty sky behind him.

“Quick, get him inside,” Kara shouted.

“I’m quite all right, madam,” Cadell said and nearly toppled back out the opening. David grabbed him, pulling him in and away from the opening. It snapped shut behind them.

“Let’s not do that again,” Cadell said, his words coming between wheezes. “At least not for a while.” His eyes rolled up in his head, and he was out.

David gently set him down on the bunk, not liking the deep wound in the back of his head, nor the patches of soft brittleness around his back, beneath the skin, as though bones were crushed.

“Don’t worry. He’s an old warhorse, sure his reserves have been taxed, but he’ll recover,” Kara said. “He has to, doesn’t he?”

Margaret looked down at Cadell, and shook her head. David could see that it was bad, shallow cuts on the scalp bled fiercely but thinly, this blood was thick and dark. Margaret released a breath with such heart aching weariness that David’s first instinct was to offer comfort. She stepped beyond his reach.

“I’m no doctor, but I’ve seen this sort of injury before.” And she paused as though remembering them, and it came to David that her background was not at all like his, and that she had entertained a very different sort of horror all her life. “David, there’s a real chance he may not wake again.”

THE GATHERING PLAINS

The Cuttlefolk led them west, away from the tracks for a good half a day, Messengers flying to and from them with increasing frequency, their sharp wing beats signalling a moment or two of rest. The Cuttlefolk did not speak, though their intentions were clear, and while they performed no brutalities upon their prisoners (water was distributed among them, even food, and it was palatable) they forced a hard march across the plains.

Twice Medicine demanded to speak to whoever was leading them, and both times he was gently and definitely dismissed.

Slowly the Cuttle city of Carnelon was revealed to them.

Built around a small range of hills, they ringed it in narrow streets, the buildings low, unlike anything Medicine had seen in Mirrlees or Chapman. They had eschewed the sky, reaching not into the heavens but deep underground. The sky was dark with Messengers, as disturbing a sight as he had ever seen. It was one thing to observe the occasional Messenger skirting over Mirrlees or Chapman, but to see them descending from the sky en masse was terrifying.

Medicine and his wards were led along narrow curling streets open to the sky, the whole place smelled sickly sweet; the scent of Cuttlefolk and the sugars they produced. Pleasant, perhaps, as an additive in perfume, but here it clawed at the throat. Reminding Medicine of those times he had drunk too much Cuttlewine, and there had been far too many of those, though now he rather expected the outcome of this journey to be far worse than any hangover.

Cuttlefolk watched them silently. The ground beneath their feet rippled, shivering to movements and masses below that Medicine didn’t want to consider all that much.

Finally, they stopped at pens where, much to Medicine’s surprise, a human greeted them. He seemed almost embarrassed.

“I’m Dreyer,” he said. “You do know you were trespassing on Cuttlefolk lands? They’re not at all happy with you.”

“I didn’t know there were humans in Carnelon.”

“There’s a few of us. We are tolerated, I suppose just as the Cuttlefolk are tolerated in Mirrlees,” he said. “I am studying Cuttlefolk sociology.”